I’ve built a temporary support wall a few times in the middle of a house with a truss roof to take load off an interior wall while I modify it, but I need to reframe some parts of some exterior walls for the first time and as I started thinking through it I realized I’m not quite sure how.
The house was built in the 60’s and has a stick-built roof with a non-structural ridge beam. The rafters are supported by struts that bear on the ceiling joists. I think this is pretty common but here’s an image as an example:
It looks like this but the proportions are a bit different.
So my question is, if I need to take load off the exterior wall that the roof and joists are sitting on, how do I do that? Do I just build a temporary support wall under the joists a few feet back from the exterior wall? It seems like that wouldn’t take much load off the wall. Or do I build it further back, under the struts? Or something else?
I’m also similarly confused about gable end walls. I want to reframe portions of a gable end wall (that doesn’t have joists sitting on it) and I’m unsure what to do. If I build the temporary support wall under the joist closest to the wall, that also doesn’t seem like it would take enough load off the wall?
Thanks for any help!
Best Answer
You shall provide the vertical supports as close as practical to shorten the overhanging length of the bottom ties. You should consider to provide braces in both directions (the sketches showing brace in one direction only) to better stabilize the supports. Do not forget to provide adequate safety factor in load calculations.